


The Way to Live

by teprometo



Series: 2012 Summer Pornathon [4]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Canon Era, Education, M/M, Team Gluttony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-06
Updated: 2012-07-06
Packaged: 2017-11-10 03:50:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teprometo/pseuds/teprometo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kilgharrah must teach the young Aithusa how to survive in a world that no longer respects the noble race of dragons. The young warlock and his king demonstrate something more important than even Kilgharrah comprehends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way to Live

**Author's Note:**

> Written for week four of the 2012 Summer Pornathon, the [Minor Characters](http://summerpornathon.livejournal.com/81349.html) challenge.
> 
>  _In teaching me the way to live_  
>  _It taught me how to die._  
>  \- My Mother's Bible, George Pope Morris

There is much Aithusa does not yet understand about the world. He is innocent, curious, trusting—all things a dragon can no longer afford to be. Kilgharrah must teach him many things, and there is so little time.

Aithusa cannot yet fly above the clouds, but he is skilled in stealth. A white dragon has its advantages, and Kilgharrah seems to learn a new one every day.

Kilgharrah teaches Aithusa of war, of the way men court mortality for the sake of fleeting abstractions like honour and duty. Kilgharrah explains the folly of their actions, the futility of war, and Aithusa seems to understand.

But he is reckless. Aithusa is drawn to magic, cannot yet ignore its beckon. Kilgharrah remembers his own youth, remembers approaching a young girl whose magic had sung to him, remembers escaping narrowly, his wings split down the middle. He learned that day that those with magic are just as dangerous as those without—perhaps more so. They become drunk on power. Only the dragonlords may be trusted.

Aithusa does not yet understand this principle notion, that willing good intentions does not make them so. And he does not respect the noble order of the dragonlords—an order of one now. The last of his kind. Kilgharrah has known that loneliness. Aithusa knows nothing but immediacy.

Kilgharrah wants to explain immediacy to Aithusa, to impart its irrelevance in a life as long as theirs, but the dragon tongue is limited. Aithusa has not yet learned the speech of mortals, is too stubborn and driven by the need to explore to fold his wings and listen.

Before they embark, Kilgharrah explains the concept of mating. He does not miss it, roiling for hours with another, but he feels an acute sense of loss for Aithusa’s sake. He will never know the joys of sirehood, of simple carnal contact.

As they fly through the storm, Aithusa asks where they’re going. Worry wells up in Kilgharrah when Aithusa does not feel the pull of the dragonlord’s magic.

They set down during a loud clap of thunder, the heavy sound of their wings obscured to mortal ears.

Aithusa moves to investigate the terrain as though he’s forgotten why they’ve come. Kilgharrah presses one talon against Aithusa’s ridged spine, urging him to be still, to absorb the meaning of what they are witnessing.

The King of Camelot kneels between the last dragonlord’s thighs, one hand resting low on his belly, soothing, the other pressing into his body. Aithusa’s eyes grow wide in question, and Kilgharrah explains that two men cannot breed, that they touch one another for pleasure and comfort. Aithusa does not understand the concept of comfort.

King Arthur presses himself into Merlin, and Merlin’s hands grasp at thick biceps, steadying himself. Arthur lays across Merlin’s body, pulling a thigh up to wrap around his leg. Merlin rolls his hips beneath him, presses his face into Arthur’s neck, twines fingers into blond hair, his voice breaking on Arthur’s every thrust.

Arthur runs a hand over Merlin’s torso, brushing a thumb across his nipple, cradling his small ribcage. He pushes Merlin’s hand above his head, and Merlin moans low and loud when Arthur presses his face into the hair under his arm, revelling in the intimate scent of Merlin as he ruts into his body.

Kilgharrah is explaining the necessary transience of this union to Aithusa, telling him that this coupling will be lost and forgotten in lives too full of chaos and strife, when Arthur presses his forehead to Merlin’s, twining their fingers as his hips jerk and then still. Kilgharrah feels the young warlock’s magic thick in the air, feels it sustaining Arthur’s release as Merlin spills between them.

Arthur pushes back the hair from Merlin’s forehead and runs his nose along the seam of black and white. There is a kind of simultaneous permanence and finality about the act, and Kilgharrah teaches Aithusa about Albion instead.

He tells the young dragon of how these two fragile, ephemeral creatures will transcend themselves and herald the age of unity. Together they will rush headlong into mortality and defeat it, be born again, wash up on the opposite shore of history renewed, relevant, necessary.

Kilgharrah explains that the time of dragons will end. Aithusa bristles with the typical obstinacy of youth, the taste for eternity that cannot possibly be quenched.

The young king presses his mouth to his lover's lips, and Kilgharrah feels Albion set down roots around them.


End file.
